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New Models of Islamic
Education in Kerala
BY
ZUBAIR HUDAWI *
The religious education system of Mappila Muslims,
who make up almost a quarter of Kerala population, needs a separate and
profound study that will shed light on various unique features of the
system and on how it differs from the Islamic education system prevalent
elsewhere in India. The origins and development of the Mappila Muslim
community on the Southern coasts of India can be traced to the very first
century of Islamic calendar, according to the most popular historic view.
And as Muslims give great importance on passing the Islamic values and
morals through generations and to facilitate the dissemination and
reproduction of religious knowledge, Mappilas of Kerala also developed
various systems of education throughout their historical evolution.
It is evident that Mappilas had moved ahead in the
past along with the changes in the educational trends of international
Muslim community, but with adjustments and accommodations needed in the
cultural atmosphere they lived in. An analysis of their pre-20th century
history shows that they had developed three kinds of educational systems
to impart education at primary, higher and mass levels. Othupallies,
better translated as Maktabs or writing schools, served as the schools of
primary education teaching the children all the preliminary knowledge
about Islam that is compulsory for every individual to know, with a
special emphasis on Qur’an recitation. ‘Palli Darses’ or
mosque-colleges served as knowledge centres producing religious scholars
who could lead the community, teach its next generation and maintain the
intellectual tradition intact. ‘Palli’ is the local word for Muslim
mosques and Christian Churches, whereas Dars comes from one of the Arabic
word for teaching and learning.
Kerala has a long tradition of higher religious
schools held in mosques, and the system still prevails with a string of
modifications needed in the modern world. Systematic wa’az programmes,
which lasted sometimes to weeks and months and which facilitated detailed
oral teaching of various noted religious texts on a host of subjects,
served as an effective setup for mass education.
The inspiring roles of many outstanding
personalities, who emerged from among Sayyed families, the scholar
community or ulema and Sufi missionaries, behind these ventures cannot be
denied. It is significant that there has always been a healthy relation
among these three strata of leadership, and Kerala Muslims always mention
the phrase ‘Ulama-Umara collaboration’ as the chief factor behind all
kind of advancement among them. Almost all of the Sufi sheikhs were
eminent scholars well-versed in Shari’a, and almost all major ulema
since the early period, including those in Makhdoom family of Ponnani, had
joined one or other of the Sufi orders. Besides, many Sayyid families who
migrated to Kerala from various religious centres like Hadhramaut and
Bukhara, were involved in religious teaching as well as in propagation of
various Sufi orders. One can assume that all these factors prevented, to a
certain extent, the spread of un-Islamic forms of popular Sufism among
Kerala Muslims.
Just like other communities, Mappila Muslims had also
faced the waves of modernisation trends with the onset of 20th century.
The emergence of reformist ideologies, the transformation of the community
leadership from the hand of individuals to that of organisations based on
various ideologies, and increased efforts for adoption of secular Western
education changed the facets of Mappila education in the first half of
last century. Most of these educational developments took place with the
direct involvement or guidance of various organisations, who worked out
various educational systems to disseminate both religious and secular
knowledge among the community. The effectiveness of these systems as well
as their role in dissemination and reproduction of religious knowledge
still need an analytical cum evaluative study.
Contribution of Samastha Kerala Jam’eyyat ul-Ulama
Religious education was at stake when calls for ‘modernisation’ turned
the attention of community leaders towards secular education, often at the
expense of religious learning. However, the Samastha Kerala Jam’eyyat
ul-Ulama, the platform of traditional religious scholars whose academic
tradition and inheritance go back to Makhdoom scholar family of Ponnani
and which represents the majority Sunni community of Kerala Muslims,
focused their attention on defending the system of traditional religious
education and worked hard for its progress. This organisation of
traditional Ulama did not get actively involved in secular education, but
adopted an ideal religious education system that allowed all Muslim boys
and girls to have their regular schooling as well along with religious
studies.
The Samastha’s educational board today runs a
systematic primary education programme that has more than eight thousand
Madrasas under it. This system of Madrasa education, in which a Muslim
child can have 12-year religious education without hampering her or his
regular schooling, has spread to all Kerala districts and to various
Indian states and foreign countries where Muslim Malayalees live. There
are other Muslim organisations in Kerala that also run many such primary
Madrasas under s centralized system, but the Samastha has reached far
ahead of them all. It was the first to respond when the government banned
public schools from providing religious education just after Independence
by calling on the community to set up Madrasas in every village where
Muslims live. While many Muslim communities elsewhere in India and abroad
had to choose either secular or religious ways of education, resulting
either in alienation from one or the other or complete assimilation with
the non-Islamic cultures and communities, this system facilitated the
harmonious integration and co-existence of Mappilas with non-Muslims along
with keeping their Islamic identity and culture intact. Mapilla students study Islam in part-time Madrasas in the
morning or evening and have their regular schooling at the same time, thus
being able to mingle with students from other communities. Muslim-managed
organisations also later set up boarding Madrasas, orphanages, integrated
public schools, etc..
Dar ul-Huda Islamic Academy, A New Experiment in
Religious Higher Education While the Samastha facilitated the integration
of religious and secular education at the primary level, it continued its
view of the secular-religious dichotomy at the higher levels until the
1970s. Students had to select
between the two for higher studies after having had both at primary levels
from Madrasa and schools. Parents who wanted to make their children
religious scholars sent them to Sharia colleges where the learning was
limited to various traditional religious subjects. Its result was
incompetence of religious graduates and their inability to cope with
modern trends and the failure of secularly-educated to carry forward their
religious ethos. In the 1970s, scholars of the Samastha started responding
to this issue by adopting various innovations and trying to effectively
synthesise both streams of knowledge.
An outstanding figure who gave an ideological base
and intellectual perspective to this process of change was the late MM
Basheer Musliyar Al-Baqawi (1929-1987).
(Musliyar is the local word to denote a traditional religious
scholar). His foresightedness was instrumental in various educational
innovations that occurred among the Sunni community of Kerala in the last
quarter of the 20th century. He spoke of an educational philosophy aimed
at reproducing the philosopher-scientist scholars who lived in the golden
period of Islamic medieval history. He called for reforming the curriculum
and syllabus of the higher centres of Islamic learning by taking lessons
from outstanding Islamic personalities came in the past. He argued that
the prevailing system of Islamic education was very narrow, and emphasised
the need of preparing a more inclusive syllabus that would enable the
progress of humanity in all fields. He called on Islamic colleges to
introduce many subjects that are Fard kifayah (community religious
obligation) like health sciences, professional and technical subjects.
In 1970s, Basheer Musliyar al-Baqawi initiated many attempts to
innovate the Darses in the mosques. He tried hard to implement his vision
of ‘Model Darses’ which was aimed at a fresh and live approach towards
every subject taught in the Darses along with teaching languages of
English and Urdu. His point was that the Dars graduates, the future
scholarly leaders of the community, should not be left behind and they
should be equally aware of modern trends and subjects and be able to
relate it with Islamic perspectives. However, the attempts did not yield
the needed results. In 1972, Basheer Musliyar joined the Rahmaniya Arabic
College at Kadameri of Calicut District, where he implemented many
outstanding and attractive innovations. Rahmaniyya was the premier
traditional Muslim college in Kerala that started the teaching of Arabic,
English and Urdu languages and social subjects along with religious
subjects.
When he saw that he could not bring the innovations
and reforms in the way he desired, Basheer Musliyar thought of a separate
institution where he could effectively and practically synthesise
religious and secular subjects, keeping in mind the changes of the modern
world. His intention of producing scholars capable of propagating Islam in
the modern world impressed two other great personalities—CH Hyderus
Musliyar and Dr. U Bapputty Haji—and attracted support from a host of
community well-wishers, though it also drew a number of critics. The three
worked hard to materialise their dream and succeeded in the establishment
of Dar ul-Huda Islamic Academy in 1986 at Chemmad, in Kerala’s Muslim
majority district of Malappuram.
Dar ul-Huda offers a 12-year course that integrates
religious education with important secular subjects. During the first 12 years of its running, each year Darul
Huda admitted 80 students out of hundreds of applicants in the age group
of 10-11, who had completed the fifth standard in both madrasa and school,
on the basis of oral and written tests. The 12-year course has been
divided into four stages - a 2-year Preparatory course, a 4-year Secondary
course, a 4-year Degree course and a 2-year PG course. The syllabus
includes religious subjects such as Quran, Tajweed, Hadith, Usul ul-Hadith,
Fiqh, Usul ul-Fiqh, Aqeeda, Tasawwuf, Nahvu, Sarf, Mantiq, Balagha and
Comparative studies of various religions, as well as secular subjects like
Maths, Social Sciences, History, Physics, Chemistry, Biology. In addition
to this, Arabic, Urdu, English and Malayalam are taught.
Facilities for extra curricular activities like debates,
discussions, oratory training, computer studies and sports are also
provided. The institution follows selected text books of both Kerala State
and CBSE syllabuses for its teaching of secular subjects until the
secondary level. When the student completes 18 year of his age, i.e. when
he reaches the 8th class of the system, Darul Huda makes it mandatory for
him to appear for the entrance tests of various universities offering
degrees in social science subjects and languages under their Open
University Systems. Students generally opts for subjects like Sociology,
Political Science, English, Malayalam, Economics etc. for their degree,
and the Dar ul-Huda facilitates the study of these subjects inside the
institution by appointing separate teachers and allocating sufficient
time. Simultaneously, students carry on their study of religious texts and
subjects. Once the student
graduates from institution they have degrees of both Islamic and secular
higher educational institutions.
Although the success of the Dar ul-Huda is still to
be assessed and evaluated, it is clear that it adopts a very novel
approach and appears to have fared comparatively well.. At a time when
there was a feeling that religious education was the choice of poor
students or of those less talented, under-skilled and ‘good for nothing
else’ children, the Dar ul-Huda catered particularly to bright students
irrespective of their background, and selected limited students purely on
the basis of merit after conducting tough written and oral examinations.
The founders of the institution stressed that religious propagation was
done by prophets who are supposed to be the most clever and brilliant in
the community, and the religious scholars who are their successors should
be the most brilliant among their community, too.
The Dar ul-Huda sees itself as imparting good
education in secular subjects not for its students to get a government job
and or to produce Muslim professionals and technicians. Instead, the aim
is to produce pure Islamic scholars who have a clear idea of the modern
world, its trends and ideologies. Interestingly,
the institution has evoked great interest among a large number of Mappila
Muslims and soon many very rich or highly educated families started vying
for admissions for their children therein. As a result, several trusts and
committees in different parts of Kerala have started affiliated
institutions that adopt the same syllabus as the Dar ul-Huda and receive
academic assistance from it. The Dar ul-Huda has now expanded into
something like a university chain, having around 20 colleges following the
same syllabus under a co-ordination committee.
In addition to this, Darul Huda runs a special
10-year course in its campus to cater to the needs of Urdu-medium
students, who generally hail from the neighbouring states of Tamil Nadu,
Karnataka and Andra Pradesh as well as Maharashtra and from some north
Indian states as well. It has started an affiliated Urdu-medium college in
Mumbai, and the Dar ul-Huda’s alumni are in the process of setting up a
modern Islamic higher learning centre in Chittoor, in Andhra Pradesh.
The Dar ul -Huda also runs a separate section for
Quran memorization, in which the students are admitted at the age of
seven, and once they complete the memorization process they continue the
12-year course of the institution.
After producing 12 batches of students now, the Dar
ul-Huda now urgently needs to review its performance.
Being given a balanced and sound education, many graduates of the
institution have been able to secure well-paid jobs at home and abroad in
various fields. However, the
institution needs to closely examine the role of its graduates in
contributing to the intellectual development of the Muslim community and
enabling it to meet contemporary challenges.
Zubair
Hudawi, a graduate of the Dar ul-Huda, is
presently a Ph.D. student at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
He can be contacted on zubyjnu@gmail.com
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